


What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

by WhatBecomesOfYou



Category: Cheers (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatBecomesOfYou/pseuds/WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diane comes back into town for her annual visit, but this time, she has an ulterior motive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JessBakesCakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessBakesCakes/gifts).



It's like this, they say.

You can't keep two magnets apart. No matter how far apart they are, they're always going to be driven together by sheer force of will, and the collision will be felt throughout the land. 

Not even when those two magnets are better known as Sam and Diane, and the distance between them is an entire country.

***

She disembarked from her plane and clutched her bag tightly to her as she made her way to the gate. And there he was, just the same as he always was, leaning against the window and looking out at her plane. “Sam,” she said.

“Diane.” He turned to face her. They could pretend that this whole thing was wholly unexpected – but after all, she had called him, told him that she was coming, gave him the flight information. She'd half-expected him not to show. But there he was – he was live and in front of her, just as the same as he always had been.

She knew how this routine would go. It was this way every time she went to Boston. This time, it was a little different though.

They were silent as they retrieved her bag from the carousel and made their way out of the airport.

She watched the lights of the city go by in the car on the way back to his apartment. She was over ten years removed from the day that she left. Things had changed. Road construction had been done. But the lights of the skyline still twinkled merrily as she went along. Traffic at Logan was just as bad as it always had been. Some things never changed.

She looked over at Sam. “Sam,” she said, echoing his name, as if it was the only thing she could say. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He swerved into the next lane over.

“For picking me up from the airport. It was very kind,” she said. “You could have made me take a taxi into the city.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because the first few times I came back, you did.”

“Because I didn't think you'd keep coming back.”

“And yet, I have.” She folded her hands over each other on her lap. “There's something about this city that I just can't shake, no matter how long I live in another part of the country.” She pursed her lips together. “I think that's you.”

He snorted and laughed. “Well, if you say so. You're welcome to stay, you know. Make yourself more at home here. Again. Like you used to.”

She frowned. “I think it's best that this stays an annual occurrence, Sam,” she said. “It makes it more special.” She leaned over and planted a kiss to his cheek. “I always look forward to my days out here in Boston with you.”

***

They pulled up to his apartment building, and she walked in – she knew the way to his apartment, even if she was blindfolded. She knew every part of Sam inside and out. Because as much as he could claim that he had changed in the time that she'd been gone, she knew that he was the same Sam he had always been.

The fact was that after he closed the door behind him and sealed his lips over hers – and it was completely the indication that as many years had passed between the day she left Boston and now, things hadn't changed as much as she might have thought. Sure, her face wasn't as tight and smooth as it had been the first day she'd walked into Cheers, but she thought she carried her age quite well. And Sam – he was only looking better as he got older. 

But it was hard to think of all that when his lips were working their magic over her lips – and in quick succession, her jaw, her neck, and her shoulder blade. His hands grasped her back, and one of them slid up to fumble with her bra strap. She wasn't used to him fumbling, but she also wasn't used to him trying to undress her. She usually liked to be the one in control there. She let her hands drop to his waist, where she ran her hand along his waist and felt the skin under her touch. 

He guided her backwards, and she knew where they were headed – his bedroom, the sight of many of her previous trips. It was the current Boston hotspot that she knew the best. And she mused to herself, he still knew how to kiss, with just the right amount of tongue and lack of saliva. It was enough bring her spinning and dizzy back down to Earth after floating among the galaxies. 

She let her knees drop to the bed, and she looked up at him. “Sam,” she said. “Have you ever considered the thought that maybe you and I were meant to be together?”

“If you were in Boston, I could possibly consider that,” he said, sitting down next to her. “But why now?”

“I don't know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Everyone keeps talking about how the world's going to end on Saturday, and all I could think about is being here with you.”

“You realize that it's just hype, right? All that Y2K stuff?”

“I don't know! It's all these computers, and everything is computerized now, and you and I would know how to get by in a world without it, but I've gotten used to my computer.” She frowned. “I mean, even if I had to buy a second phone line for my internet.”

“And you're wondering why we can't just go back to the abacus and slide rule for everything. Even if you're possibly the only person still alive who knows how to use them.”

“Very funny, Sam,” she said. “It would be nice though, you know. I just -” her voice caught, “I just knew that if I wasn't here in Boston when the clock struck twelve on Saturday, I might as well turn into Cinderella's pumpkin.”

“Because you wanted to be here with me.”

“Because I _needed_ to be,” she said, correcting him. “It went beyond wanting.” She looked at him and shoved a lock of hair back over her face, so that her eyes were exposed to him, full of emotion. “I needed to know that if the world ended, that you were the last face I saw.”

He nodded. 

“Even if the world didn't end, you'd still be the last face I'd want to see before I -” she paused. “Yeah. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I think I do,” he said. He closed his lips over hers again and let out a sigh. His hand retraced its previous steps, finally managing to unhook her bra strap. She lifted her shirt above her head, breaking from her contact with him, and then shook it loose. “You're still beautiful,” he said. “You're like a fine wine. Not that I'd know that much about wine.”

“I always was the wine drinker,” Diane murmured. “Sam – please – I want you.”

He kissed her again, and she thought that he was going to say no – say something that would make her realize all the reasons that she stayed away fifty-one and a half weeks out of the year. And then his lips blazed a path from her lips and down her chest, and she pulled him closer to him and dared him to never let her go.

***

It was almost midnight on Friday night, New Year's Eve, and Sam and Diane sat in his apartment watching the ball hover over Times Square. The news reports out of Sydney were promising, but Diane still wasn't going to hold her breath. Maybe the apocalypse worked on a US basis. Midnight Eastern, 11 pm Central.

“When did you say you were flying back to Los Angeles?” Sam asked, taking a swig of his beer as she rocked herself against his shoulder.

“Oh, I, uh, because I wasn't sure of Y2K, I -” she ducked her head. “I only bought a one-way ticket out here.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I wasn't going to waste my money if I wasn't going to live to see my return flight,” she said. “After tonight, if the banks are still running, I can buy one.”

“If you insist,” he said. “It's been nice having you here though. Even if it's only for a few days. You could extend your trip here. Indefinitely, even.”

“ _Sam_ ,” she said. “Are we going to go through the reasons why you and I work best when it's not an everyday sort of thing?”

He swallowed another swig. “I'm saying, I like having you here, and I don't see any reason why you should go back to California. I'm here, you clearly miss it here...”

The countdown started, the clock struck midnight, and he tilted her chin up to face him for a kiss. It was almost as though this kiss was trying to communicate everything that he meant to say to her, summed up in one neat action. 

The world hadn't ended. The electricity hadn't gone off, there hadn't been a nuclear explosion outside their window. All she could hear was the sound of cheering on television and the sound of fireworks crackling in the distance.

As they broke apart, she whispered, in a low voice meant for only his ears to hear, “maybe I will.”

"Good." And he kissed her again.


End file.
